France is deploying 70,000 police and gendarmes on Oct. 24 for renewed protests over living costs and school conditions, a week after demonstrations were marred by violence and looting.
“We will be uncompromising with rioters, looters and all those who commit acts of violence,” Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez told reporters on Oct. 23. Helicopters, drones, water cannon and armored vehicles will support the deployment.
About 3,000 businesses were damaged or looted during the Oct. 17 unrest. Shopkeepers boarded up windows ahead of the new demonstrations, while the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay were among Paris museums closed for the day.
Paris police withdrew approval for a march between Bastille and Nation on Oct. 23, proposing an alternative route between Porte d’Italie and Porte de Vincennes. Organizing unions rejected the change and said they would maintain their original route.
Nighttime curfews covering parts of Place de la République and Les Halles remain in place until Oct. 26. Demonstrations are also restricted in several other cities, including large parts of central Lyon.
President Emmanuel Macron, who has called for demonstrations not organized by unions to be banned wherever possible, met high school student representatives on Oct. 23. The students called for protests to continue, saying they were still waiting for concrete proposals.
Separately, a gunman killed one person and wounded five, including a 12-year-old girl, in Trappes and neighboring La Verrière, west of Paris, on Oct. 23.
Police arrested the suspect shortly after the shootings, and national antiterrorism prosecutors took charge of the investigation.
Macron described the shootings as “a racist terror attack.” Trappes Mayor Ali Rabeh said the attack was racist and probably Islamophobic.
